Leaked Shell internal emails reveal concern over Corrib subsea wells

Published below is my self-explanatory correspondence with Royal Dutch Shell ethics boss Richard Wiseman, over the latest installment of leaked Shell internal emails, this time relating to the highly sensitive topic of the Corrib Gas Project in Ireland. More will follow.

The project has been dogged by controversy, including the jailing at Shell’s behest of the “Rossport Five” – members of the local population who have deep concern over safety and other issues.

The string of Shell internal emails from March and April 2009, involve over half a dozen Shell employees and includes reference to senior Shell executives. The Shell people involved discuss concern over well ownership and issues relating to “long term suspension” of “subsea gas wells”.

In this connection, one email says:

“In this case, risk may be mainly reputational rather than safety or environmental (subsea gas wells).”

Note that it says “may be” mainly reputational. In other words, the risk could be to safety or the environment.

In view of recent events in the Gulf of Mexico and the just announced delay on the Corrib project resulting in a further 3 year extension of “long term suspension”, the local population is likely to be alarmed at these revelations of internal concern at Shell that has not revealed to the public.

We have reason to believe that the leaked Shell internal emails below are authentic.

If you do not indicate otherwise within 24 hours, we will take the lack of a denial as confirmation of authenticity.

If you wish to supply any comment for unedited publication along with the emails, you are welcome to do so.

If you need more time to check this matter out, just let me know. As always our first priority is publishing accurate authentic information.

If there is any exceptional reason why we should not publish, please say so. As you know, on both occasions that Shell has asked us not to publish, indicating exceptional grounds, we have agreed not to do so. This will be our continuing policy.

Regards
John Donovan

REPLY FROM RICHARD WISEMAN

As ever, you should not take my silence to be an admission of authenticity. I am surprised that you continue to try to force an admission by default. I can by no means guarantee always to receive your emails within 24 hours of your sending them and in the interests of the accuracy and authenticity you claim to adhere to, I should have thought that you would never rely on silence as confirmation of your assertions, particularly in the light of the repeated requests from me and others that you do not do so.

As I made plain, you only had to let me know if you needed more time to investigate. Whenever Shell has asked for more time to respond, we have always agreed.

Readers of the correspondence will be able to draw their own conclusions for your “silence” over the authenticity of the latest crop of Shell internal emails, as I do. Readers will also be able to draw their own conclusions about who is trying to be open, constructive and fair.

As I have stated previously, you are free to say that Shell would like us to cease giving the company the opportunity to comment on draft articles or on the authenticity of Shell internal documents and emails leaked to us. If you tell us that this is the case, then we will cease.

Thus far, Shell has preferred to retain the option to have advance sight of such information and be able to comment, as Shell has done several times, or decline to comment, which is the most frequent response. Knowing as I do, certain matters in the pipeline for publication in the coming weeks, now would not be a good time for Shell to give up this facility, but the decision is yours. Having had dealings with us for getting on to two decades, you know that we would not wish to be a nuisance to Shell.

Regards
John Donovan

EMAIL CORRESPONDENCE ENDS

I also supplied the Shell internal correspondence to some individuals with expertise in such matters.

FIRST RESPONSE

Hello John

Nice string of emails, lots of egg on the face of Shell.

I am certain they are all genuine.

The issue clearly is that there is no well defined owner of these assets. In my view this is criminal because in case of an emergency one needs action fast and if there is no owner they all will be waiting on each other. Very clear that this has slipped through the cracks. It is possible that WE (I assume Well Engineering) is still the owner since the wells have never produced (I assume?). But normally drilling hands over in a formal and documented way the ownership of the wells after these are completed.

It also is very clear that there is confusion as to the status of the wells. In short, you have just uncovered a great mess and Shell Europe should be very ashamed of itself not to have found this out themselves and rectified it the same day, now it is because some minions with their heart in the right place are taking some belated action. The head honchos obviously were too busy following Vosers decree to reduce staff, never mind the consequences .

This is going to be interesting. Perhaps you should ask how come there is no asset holder. How come this was not discovered in one of the great many audits on every topic one can think of. (Head office bureaucrats need to be kept busy after all). Clear example of me first, business later. Sounds familiar?

If someone does not get sacked over this or severely reprimanded, it would show that Shell has lost its basic control mechanisms! But what do you expect with beancounters and HR people in charge of a technical business?

A concerned Shell retiree.

EXTRACTS FROM SECOND RESPONSE

The fact that people are expressing concern that there seems to be an implied shortcoming is in itself proof that there are some good people in Shell going above and beyond their allocated duties.

This is definitely another classic example of the quote from inside Shell: 95% of Shell staff are honest, ethical and extremely competent. Unfortunately the other 5% are in senior management positions

Im not saying that what has happened is completely kosher, but the names of the people expressing concern in the emails are not the villains  please dont shoot the messengers!

Bearing in mind the above plea, we have decided not to publish the emails but will be supplying them to a third party for investigation.

SHELL BLOG

Comments

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels: So Shell has been caught with its pants down again, telling blatant lies, this time about the cleanliness of gas. All so that it can improve its clean credentials and make even more $$$. Can we believe anything they tell us? Where would we be without the likes of Friends of the Earth who bring Shell to task. Where does it say we are allowed to lie and mislead in our business principles? This is a great message from the leaders to the worker bees "Do as we say, not as we do". Im sure the paid Shell apologists will come on here and tell us we shouldnt pick on Shell and they are a caring company and we should be greatful for working for them and that John Donovan is to blame.

Bogus Group: A media article has revealed that Shell is already suffering from the legacy of BG Group negligence in maintaining safety critical equipment. The HSE have issued an improvement notice for failing to install gas detection equipment on the Lomond Platform, despite recommendations from two separate studies. A second improvement notice was issued for failing to test a High Integrity Protection System (HIPS) since 2014, despite the associated Performance Standard requirement to test annually. It could be assumed that Finlayson encouraged the infamous Brent TFA during his tenure at the helm of BG to maximise production volumes (an obsession with executives), at the expense of safety system testing. That assumption would not be entirely accurate, the same culture was evident in BG Group long before. Previous failures of a HIPS testing regime had been exposed at another BG operational location, yet despite this no one was held accountable. Maybe if they had been the ‘management team’ in question would not have been implanted in Aberdeen in 2012.
SEE: Shell gets two Lomond warnings from HSE

Who ya kiddin?: This Lower Forever strategy is something that has so obviously been dreamt up by HR and the bean counters so that the company can justify all the savage cost cutting and job culling. I find the company tactics revolting. Anyone with half a brain cell in the oil world knows that its only a matter of time before oil starts to motor upwards.

The second leak, a story in itself, but also what leaked, (HF) hydrogen fluoride is a very dangerous gas when it reacts with the atmosphere, also very harmful to health, look it up. Article does not say what volumes involved but the closure of this super sized plant is a big deal commercially apart from reputation issues.

Doomcaster: As much as I like some of Bill Campbell's articles this latest one is just going a bit too far. there are so many variables which will change the prognosis here that its almost impossible to predict the leakage potential of Prelude. The major ones are location and hydrocarbon profile. I wonder what Bill Campbell would advocate as a solution? It almost appears as if he wants to be in a position to say "I told you so" and not in a supportive mode of "this is what you could do". The safety cases for Prelude do of course look at spill scenarios and remediation is the key, none of us at Shell is naive enough to believe in the 100% carbon loss free situation but common sense, good engineering and good training will do a lot to combat what Bill sees as the inevitable. armchair criticism at its best.

SFA (Say F All): Reading Bill's comments has inspired me to chime in. Ruthless cost cutting is leading to such HSE incidents. The sacking of skilled and experienced staff is taking place all over the place. The risk level is being seen as acceptable where there is heavy cost injection required to be on the safe side. Nobody dares question this due to the HR assassins that are currently patrolling the corridors looking for their next victims.

'avin a larf!: You have to laugh when you read these documents which HR have produced. It must have been written by someone with verbal diarrhea. Expressions like "Focusing capability from both an organisational and locational design perspective to drive productivity, ideation and promote Agile ways of working" show just how far these people are away from the rest of us at the coal face. Some of the invented words (ideation) are superb ! I guess this is all to protect the jobs in HR as someone has to translate this BS into what happens in the real world. It appears we have regressed into the bad old days of buzzword bingo, how many buzzwords can we put into one document. Sigh.

The Fugitive: I am grateful for the information I read in the New York Times as being in the US we are far from whats happening in the American hating HQ. Such job culling decisions are made behind the scenes without just cause or any consultation and then we are told about it when all the decisions are already made. As for this being stolen property, I would love to see Shell try to take John Donovan to the courts again. I'm sure he and his attorney are licking their lips at such a (butt kicking) prospect.

REPLY BY JOHN

Sorry, no prospect of Shell suing me. I have a Shell internal communication stating that they decided long ago that any legal action against me is ruled out. Too much "internal laundry" that they do not want revealed in open court. So I have a free hand to say and publish whatever I want about Shell without fear of retribution. Always sticking to the truth, but perhaps prone to exaggeration as "Cash All Gone" suggests in the nicest possible way.

Cash All Gone: The "leaked" document is not so dramatic as you make it seem - every Shell employee can freely access it, including all the to-be org charts. Everyone should already have had a 1-on-1 conversation with their line manager on whether their job is at risk or not. So Shell is actually very transparently approaching this. On the VP musical chairs - numbers quoted are 50% of VPs would have to leave, and GM level even more. So the cull really cuts right through it...

Shell Job Cuts: How do we know that the Shell document referred to in the Reuters article is not fake? If genuine, and therefore stolen property, why would Shell allow you to publish any of the content?

REPLY BY JOHN DONOVAN

Shell was given the opportunity days ago by myself and more recently by Reuters to take issue with the authenticity of the 88 page document. I supplied extracts and offered BvB sight of the whole document in a security sanitised form. Shell had the option to ask me not to publish (I have accommodated high level requests from Shell previously when grounds were provided) or could have sought an injunction. Shell knew it was authentic and kindly provided comment for Reuters to use in their article.

Good News: PS Cadfael, why do you assume I am a man?

Good News: Cadfael, clearly you're living in the past. It sounds like you are one of those folks who expect you have a job for life. The staff numbers especially in the Head Offices have always been bloated and a legacy of high oil prices. Ben and his management team have taken what most sensible boards would have done. Look, for example, at the costs in Deepwater which have been reduced by over 50% by prudent management and getting rid of the 'good old boy' network. I agree it is not nice for people to lose their jobs, thankfully a lot of the losses have been with the older guys who ran laughing all the way to the bank leaving some of us in good positions. Yes I will look over my back but Shell isn't the only company in the world and people need to realize that protection of jobs comes at a cost. As for Ben looking "an aging, sorry, tired figure", I have never heard so much rubbish. I saw him two days ago and your statement could not be further from the truth. Sad false news I'm afraid.

John Donovan’s ebooks

EBOOK TITLE: “SIR HENRI DETERDING AND THE NAZI HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZONEBOOK TITLE: “JOHN DONOVAN, SHELL’S NIGHTMARE: MY EPIC FEUD WITH THE UNSCRUPULOUS OIL GIANT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.EBOOK TITLE: “TOXIC FACTS ABOUT SHELL REMOVED FROM WIKIPEDIA: HOW SHELL BECAME THE MOST HATED BRAND IN THE WORLD” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.